Monthly Archives: April 2017

“Pretty is as pretty does” and “proof in the pudding” are time-worn bits of wisdom suggesting that results are more important than good looks or good intentions. That wisdom is never truer than when applied to horse racing.

In racing, results are everything. Quite understandably as the first races for 2-year-olds are decided, owners and managers of young stallions like Violence (by Medaglia d’Oro) are hopeful and anxious at the same time.

For owners, for trainers, jockeys, breeders, and all those associated in auxiliary roles, the winning post signifies the measure of success for each. And that’s part of the reason that so much attention is paid to the leading sales of 2-year-olds in training.

The works leading up to the sales aren’t races, but you won’t see a horse being asked for a harder drive of energy to the finish than some coming down the lane with a flaming furlong.

So, success in the sales, such as the Ocala Breeders Sales Company’s April auction held April 25-28, tells us some things; doesn’t tell us others.

One of the final results left hanging is whether young sires who are the repository of great hopes will find success through the medium of their young racers.

Grade 1 winner Violence himself was a star juvenile. Unbeaten in three races in a coast-to-coast campaign, Violence won the Hollywood Futurity in California and the G2 Nashua Stakes at Aqueduct. He was one of the highest-ranked juveniles of his crop, and great things were expected of the tall, dark, and very handsome colt as a 3-year-old.

Unfortunately, Violence’s second season ended after a single start, when he was a hard-fought second in the 2013 Fountain of Youth to eventual Kentucky Derby winner Orb (Malibu Moon).

Retired to stud in 2014, both have their first crops coming through the in-training sales this year, and along with Preakness winner Oxbow (Awesome Again), they represent the 2013 classic crop with a significant number of prospects in their initial crops of racers.

Standing at Hill ‘n’ Dale Farm outside Lexington, Ky., for a $15,000 stud fee, Violence is the leader of this group by number of foals in his first crop with 188, and he already has his first winner.

Violence was big and fast; his offspring are tending toward large and look fast. Therefore, people want to buy them.

From his first crop of yearlings, Violence had 84 sold for an average price of $79,727 and a median of $50,000.

This season, 11 of his 2-year-olds have sold for an average of $167,751 and a median price $100,000. At the OBS sale, the sire had 27 youngsters cataloged (seven outs). From his workers, three went in :10, and a half-dozen more sped a furlong in :10 1/5.

For their size and work speed, the Violence stock are generating interest, and maiden special events across the country will feature their debuts in the coming months.

Inside Straight (by Super Saver) won the Grade 2 Oaklawn Handicap on April 15. It was neither the most important race, nor the most impressive performance of the weekend, but Inside Straight has a pedigree with some exceptional distinctions, as well as a nearly universal commonality.

The great majority of all the top-tier racehorses today descend from a single male line, that of Lord Derby’s extraordinary stallion Phalaris. Born just over a century ago in 1913, Phalaris was a dark brown son of the good stallion Polymelus out of the mare Bromus. On the racecourse, Phalaris was a horse of high speed and immense strength, but at stud he was a miracle.

Phalaris sired horses of such speed, combined with reasonable stamina, that he got top juveniles, classic winners, and outstanding older horses. The success of his racing stock made him the leading sire in England, home to the most competitive breeding and racing in the world a century ago.

The single thing that has set apart Phalaris from all the other great English sires – Saint Simon, Swynford, and Hyperion, for instance – is that the sons of Phalaris spread that success around the world, and the sons and grandsons carried on.

Through the male line, in particular, the descendants of Phalaris have covered the world, and the two primary branches of this overachieving line of stallions come to us through Northern Dancer and his broodmare sire Native Dancer.

The latter stallion is a point of great interest.

Beaten only once, by Dark Star in the 1953 Kentucky Derby, Native Dancer was a gray goliath. By the high-class sprinter-miler Polynesian (Unbreakable), who also won the Preakness Stakes, Native Dancer was out of the gray Discovery mare Geisha. The 1954 Horse of the Year as a 4-year-old, Native Dancer was the only stakes winner out of Geisha, but he wasn’t a good horse.

Native Dancer was a great one.

Champion at 2, 3, and 4, Native Dancer towered over his contemporaries, and of all the horses racing at the same time, only Tom Fool, who was a champion at 4 and unbeaten in 1953, was considered a serious challenger for Alfred Vanderbilt’s great gray.

The two never met.

That is a peculiar irony because they descend from full brothers. Native Dancer is a great-grandson of the imported stallion Sickle, and Tom Fool is a grandson of the imported stallion Pharamond.

Bred in England by Lord Derby, Sickle and Pharamond were both sons of Phalaris and out of the great broodmare Selene (Chaucer), thus half-brothers to Lord Derby’s great champion racer and sire Hyperion.

Both full brothers were considered surplus to the needs of Lord Derby’s stud, like nearly all colts. Sickle sold to Joseph Widener and went to stand at Elmendorf Stud in Kentucky, and Hal Price Headley bought Pharamond to stand at his Beaumont Farm, just south of Lexington.

Sickle was a year older and became a quicker success at stud, but both were important sires. Pharamond, however, sired the best son: Menow. A really fast, ruggedly made individual, Menow was out of Headley’s wonderful broodmare Alcibiades (for whom the stakes is named), and he became a really good sire.

For a time, it appeared that Pharamond might be the one to breed on in the male line more strongly than Sickle, but Menow’s classic-winning son Capot was virtually sterile (15 foals), although Tom Fool was a very serious stallion who sired Horse of the Year Buckpasser and other good horses.

Native Dancer, however, changed everything for the fortunes of the Sickle branch of Phalaris.

In Europe through Atan (Sharpen Up and his sons Kris and Diesis) and Dan Cupid (Sea-Bird), Native Dancer has played a key role in stallions with speed and classic potential, and at home in the States, the gray superhorse has become an exceptional influence, primarily through Raise a Native and his son Mr. Prospector, but also through Alydar, Exclusive Native, and numerous others, including Kentucky Derby winner Majestic Prince, the male-line connection for Inside Straight.

Then also as the broodmare sire of good horses, most prominently Northern Dancer, Native Dancer has proliferated through pedigrees to the extent that it is not common to find one without him, and many have multiple presences.

Inside Straight has seven crosses of Native Dancer, which would be one of the stronger pedigrees in that regard. Since he is a gelding, Inside Straight will not be changing the history of breeding, but he is a reminder of the heavily muscled gray and all he did for racing and breeding.

It’s not every day you see a major winner with a Buckpasser third dam. A foal of 1963, Buckpasser died all too young at age 15 in 1978, making his last-crop fillies born in 1979, 38 years ago.

That’s fourth-generation territory because pedigrees average out to about 10 years per generation. So, typically, we would see Buckpasser in the fifth generation or further back, but Blue Grass Stakes winner Irap (by Tiznow) has some notable older influences closer up in his pedigree, which is fascinating at many levels.

For one thing, the Bluegrass Stakes winner is a half-brother to champion sprinter Speightstown (Gone West), also a leading sire. The 19-year-old Speightstown has sired just over a thousand foals, with 76 stakes winners to date and progeny earnings of more than $76 million.

Tiznow – galloping in his paddock at WinStar Farm – where he stands alongside Speightstown. They are sire and half-brother to 2017 Blue Grass Stakes winner Irap. (WinStar photo)

For another, Speightstown and Irap are bookends to the 17-year producing career of their dam Silken Cat (Storm Cat). Speightstown was the mare’s first foal, and Irap was her last. Most of the reason for the compression of generations is Silken Cat, a stakes winner and champion 2-year-old filly in Canada, where she was unbeaten in all three of her starts at 2.

Silken Cat, who wasn’t bred the last two years of her life, died last year at age 23.

Many commercial advisers and buyers are intensely critical of the produce from older mares, even hypercritical. As a result, it is difficult to sell young prospects out of older mares, but Silken Cat had the last laugh.

Bred in Kentucky by Aaron and Marie Jones, Irap was born when his dam was 21, and he was a very nice foal. The prejudice, however, against “old-mare foals” was evident when Irap went through the 2015 Keeneland September yearling sale. He was led out unsold at $140,000.

At the following year’s Ocala Breeders’ Sales March auction of 2-year-olds in training, Irap left no questions unanswered. He whipped through his work with a stride length of nearly 24 feet and earned a BreezeFig of 66, which is quite good. Irap was one of the typically good-looking and well-prepared juveniles that Bobby Dodd brings to the premium auctions, and Irap sold like it.

Dennis O’Neill, among other astute judges, spotted the talent and secured the bay colt for the account of Reddam Racing for $300,000.

Prior to the feature at Keeneland, the major knock on Irap was that he came into the Blue Grass a maiden, but he was what the English would call “highly tried” because although Irap had not won, the good-looking colt had not been wasting his time thumping on maidens. Irap had been second in the G1 Los Alamitos Futurity to Mastery, plus second in the Robert Lewis Stakes earlier this year.

While he was no Buckpasser, who won 15 races in a row at one point in his career, Irap was promising and came to the Blue Grass with a mission. Mission accomplished.

The Blue Grass winner shares the generational compression of his own female line with his famous ancestor, champion and Horse of the Year Buckpasser.

In Buckpasser’s case, the third dam was born 37 years earlier, and she is the great broodmare La Troienne (Teddy), foaled in 1926.

Irap’s third dam is even older; the Buckpasser mare Insilca was foaled in 1974, 40 years before Irap. Insilca foaled two stakes winners, and the most prominent was Turf Classic winner Turk Passer, one of two G1 winners by champion Turkoman (Alydar).

Insilca’s other stakes winner was Silken Doll, a quick and classy daughter of Chieftain (Bold Ruler), and Silken Doll’s stakes-producing daughters include champion Silken Cat, the dam of Irap and Speightstown.

Looking the other direction in Irap’s female line, Insilca is out of the stakes winner Copper Canyon, whose sire Bryan G. (Blenheim) was most famous for siring champion Cicada. Copper Canyon is out of First Flush, who also produced Sorority Stakes winner Bold Experience and Dade Metropolitan Handicap winner Virginia Delegate (both by Bold Ruler).

First Flush, a daughter of the little-known Mahmoud stallion Flushing, was a nonwinning half-sister to some pretty hot horses. Her siblings included champions First Landing (Turn-to) and Hill Prince (Princequillo), plus three other stakes winners.

They are all out of the great broodmare Hildene, one of the foundation mares of Christopher Chenery’s Meadow Stud. Copper Canyon was bred by Meadow Stud, then later acquired by Mrs. Charles Engelhard, who bred Insilca, and this family has continued to reward its owners with quality and class through the decades.

Galloping under the wire of the Grade 1 Florida Derby a five-length winner of the race in 1:47.47, Always Dreaming (by Bodemeister) set all those connected with him to dreaming of roses. The performance was an emphatic victory, and it also reminded breeders and racing fans of the sire’s classic season in 2012, when he was second in both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness.

This colt is the third stakes winner and first G1 winner for his sire Bodemeister (Empire Maker) and is a member of that young sire’s first crop of racers. Retired to stand at WinStar Farm for the 2013 breeding season, Bodemeister covered large books of high-quality mares, and he has 131 foals in his first crop.

A front-running horse who stayed 10 furlongs, Bodemeister was noted for his speed, which allowed him to win the G1 Arkansas Derby, as well as finish a highly respectable second in the classics above. The speed that Bodemeister showed on the track made him intensely sought-after as a stallion prospect. As respected as any other colt of his year, Bodemeister’s acquisition by WinStar was regarded as a major coup.

In a commercial market attuned to the significance of early speed and its advantages, breeding farms coveted Bodemeister’s speed and potential as a sire in preference to the colt who beat him twice in the classics, I’ll Have Another (Flower Alley). A tractable front-runner with first-rate pace (:22.32, :45.39, and 1:09.80 for the first three fractions in the Derby), Bodemeister missed winning the Preakness by only a neck, and I’ll Have Another was a top-class stretch finisher.

Out of the Storm Cat mare Untouched Talent (G3 Sorrento Stakes), Bodemeister recorded Beyer Speed Figures as high as 109, and a large pool of breeders and owners considered the handsome colt a signature talent.

Additionally, he is one of two major sons by Belmont Stakes winner Empire Maker (Unbridled), and the other one is Pioneerof the Nile, the sire of Triple Crown winner American Pharoah and other notable racers.

All these positive factors contributed to making Always Dreaming a sought-after yearling when he came to auction in 2015.

Bred in Kentucky by Santa Rosa Partners, Always Dreaming sold for $350,000 at the Keeneland September yearling sale, with Steve Young signing the ticket as agent. Although 10 Bodemeister yearlings brought more money than Always Dreaming, the bay colt is leading the group on speed and accomplishments.

The speed comes naturally for a colt by the front-running Bodemeister and out of the intensely quick Above Perfection (In Excess), who won the G3 Las Flores Handicap with a Beyer Speed Figure of 113 and ran second to champion Xtra Heat (Dixieland Heat) in the G1 Prioress Stakes.

The 19-year-old mare is now the dam of two G1 winners from 10 named foals of racing age.

The first G1 winner out of Above Perfection was Hot Dixie Chick (Dixie Union), a sizable and quite strongly made filly who won three of her first four starts and achieved her peak form by August of her juvenile season with victory in the Spinaway Stakes at Saratoga.

In contrast, Always Dreaming was second and third in his two starts as a 2-year-old and has progressed massively this year at 3. He is unbeaten in 2017 and has graduated from maiden special to allowance to graded stakes in three starts.

If the good-looking colt progresses further in the quest for the classics, it will result in considerable appreciation to the value of other members of the family.

California-bred dam Above Perfection is the dam of an unnamed 2-year-old filly by Medaglia d’Oro that sold for $485,000 as a weanling at the 2015 Keeneland November sale. The mare has a yearling filly by Pioneerof the Nile and was bred to Honor Code.

Above Perfection’s speed and graded success sprang her from the California breeding program to Kentucky, where she has had so much success. She is, however, a model for some of the best elements of California breeding over the past 30 years.

Most notably, her sire In Excess was the best stallion to stand in California since Gummo, at least. He was a hardy, immensely talented horse who became a national influence from his California base at Vessels Stallion Station.

Above Perfection’s dam is by Somethingfabulous (Northern Dancer), whose principal claim to fame was that he was the younger half-brother of Triple Crown winner Secretariat and Kentucky Derby favorite Sir Gaylord. Somethingfabulous wasn’t up to their standard on the racetrack, placing third in the G1 Flamingo Stakes, but he became a useful stallion in the California breeding program and figures in more than a few pedigrees of good horses.

The mare’s second dam is by the terrifically fast and rugged racehorse Terrang, a son of the legendary Khaled (Hyperion), the best stallion to stand in California and a first-rate stallion anywhere. Terrang counted the Santa Anita Handicap and Santa Anita Derby among his dozen stakes victories, and he is one of the sources of speed and ability that litter the pedigree of this year’s Florida Derby winner.

A classic winner and unbeaten at 3 in 1920, Man o’ War closed out his historic career with an emphatic victory over the previous year’s star Sir Barton, who is recognized as the first winner of the Triple Crown.

Such is Man o’ War’s renown as a racer that some fans do not know his time at stud – 22 seasons until he was pensioned after the breeding season at age 25 – was both exceptional and lasting. In an article a couple of weeks ago, I delved into the contemporary male lines tracing to Man o’ War. That is the most competitive position in pedigrees, and most lines die out.

man o’ war at stud: his presence is widely dispersed through pedigrees today

Man o’ War has not, but his male line is relatively scarce. In other positions within pedigrees, the great son of Fair Play and Mahubah is almost as common as cockroaches.

Among Man o’ War’s sons, Triple Crown winner War Admiral was prominent during his lifetime and particularly through his daughters, War Admiral is an important part of the fabric of pedigrees. His daughters produced such major racers and breeding stock as Buckpasser and Hoist the Flag.

The other highly visible son of Man o’ War who has come down in pedigrees is War Relic, especially through In Reality and his stock.

Man o’ War, however, is widely distributed through pedigrees and through numerous sources. A measure of how pervasive the chestnut son of Fair Play has become is seen from a quick count of the number of times that Man o’ War appears in some of the major stakes winners over the past weekend.

In all likelihood, the breed average for pedigree presences of Man o’ War probably lies in the 15 to 20 range. He is not in pedigrees from strongly European sources such as Teddy, Blenheim, Nearco, and Hyperion, but for the strains coming out of the old American lines, Man o’ War is present in spades.

One overachiever in this regard is Fast and Accurate (Hansen), the winner of the Spiral Stakes at Turfway. The gray son of champion 2-year-old Hansen (Tapit) has 34 presences of Man o’ War, which makes Fast and Accurate the winner of this particular sweepstakes, as well.

This volume of presences of a horse from a century ago is a sure indication of the importance of Man o’ War as contributor to our modern pedigrees; otherwise his name would have died out.

There was every reason for Man o’ War’s influence to continue because he was a powerful factor for class and staying ability, plus a surprising amount of speed.

From 381 registered foals, Man o’ War sired 62 stakes winners (16 percent), and from his total foals, 199 were fillies. Due to the small books of mares that the champion covered, he led the general sire list by total earnings only once (1926) and never led the broodmare sire list, which was dominated by the remarkably prolific Sir Gallahad III. But Man o’ War was second to Sir G III no fewer than eight times as leading broodmare sire.

One of the interesting things about researching my archives with regard to Man o’ War’s influence as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of his birth is the realization that quite a number of the great horse’s daughters, as well as sons, have survived in contemporary pedigrees.

This is a considerable accomplishment because most mares do not have a large number of foals, unlike stallions, and the likelihood that the mares’ lines of descent will live on are naturally smaller.

As an example, consider two full sisters out of the Hainault mare Baton. The better racer was Wand, winner in three of her four starts, including the Matron Stakes at 2. She produced a pair of high-class performers in Caduceus (Sickle) and Halberd (Blenheim). The former was third in the Futurity Stakes, and the latter won the Saratoga Special. Those were two of the mare’s only three foals, however, and all were colts.

In contrast, Wand’s full sister Baton Rouge was a nonwinner from six starts. At stud she produced eight foals, with five winners. Among them were the top racehorses Firethorn (Sun Briar), winner of the Jockey Club Gold Cup twice, Suburban Handicap, and second in the Preakness and Belmont Stakes. Firethorn’s sibling out of Baton Rouge was Creole Maid (Pharamond II), winner of the Coaching Club American Oaks.

Baton Rouge is one of the Man o’ War lines still vibrantly present in pedigrees today.

So, as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Man o’ War’s birth, it is inspiring to note the influential and continuing legacy he has bequeathed to our sport.